QUICKSILVER IN A TUBE
“Where away, Miss Lockhart? May I come along a bit?”
Nan turned, to see Cary Ray’s tall figure falling into step beside her,
his clean-cut face wearing the look of intent purpose which was now so
marked upon it.
“Of course you may. I’m going to the station to meet Fanny. You knew
her uncle died, and she went West to the funeral? She’s coming back to
stay a few more days with me before she goes to join her mother.”
“I heard about the uncle. Is it a serious loss for her?”
“I believe he supplied Mrs. Fitch and Fanny with most of their funds,
but I think they seldom saw him. He was rather eccentric and a good
deal of a recluse.”
“Let’s hope the funds continue, anyhow,” said Cary, lightly, “in the
shape of a big bequest. That will alleviate the sense of loss, besides
providing a tender memory. These recluse uncles with large bank
accounts and generous dispositions are all too uncommon--I never saw
the shadow of one. If I only had one now! How I’d leap to make him a
farewell visit--in uniform--if I ever get mine. I’m mightily afraid
I shan’t get it, by the way, till I’m about to sail, so I’ll have no
chance to strut around this town and call on you all with an air of
conscious modesty.”
“Too bad,” laughed Nan. “But we’re quite sufficiently impressed
now just by the knowledge that you’ll soon be off. What is the
war-correspondent’s insignia, do you know?”
“Two fountain pens, crossed, on the collar, and a large splotch of
ink on the left sleeve,” announced Cary, promptly. “Also, in time,
presumably, a three-cornered tear over the right knee, and a couple of
black eyes, from trying to push to the rear out of danger while rapidly
taking notes on what a highly developed imagination assures him is
undoubtedly occurring at the front.”
“Great! My imagination, though not so highly developed, pictures a
quite different scene.... Oh, isn’t that the train coming in?”
“It is. The station clock lies, as usual. We must sprint for it if we
want to be on the platform.”
They quickened their steps, and were in time to see Frances Fitch
appear in the vestibule of her car, and to stare up at her with
surprised and--at least in Cary’s case--appreciative eyes.
“Oh, Fanny!” It was Nan Lockhart’s inner cry to her incomprehensible
friend, though her lips made no comment. “How _could_ you? Don’t you
think we must _know_ you’re acting? You don’t care enough for that.”
For Fanny was apparently in mourning, certainly in black, the most
simple but effective black the eye and hand of skilled dressmaker and
milliner could conceive, and in it she was undeniably a picture. Not
all the cunning frills and artful colour combinations of her former
dressing could approach in the setting forth of her blonde beauty the
unrelieved black silks and misty chiffons of this new garb. To Nan’s
sophisticated eye Fanny’s mourning was something of a travesty, for
it was all of materials not ordinarily considered available for the
trappings of woe; but it was undoubtedly only the more effective
for that. Perhaps, Nan acknowledged, in that first quick glance, it
represented the precise shade of honour due a recluse uncle who had
been represented in his niece’s life principally by monthly cheques and
not at all by intimate association.
“My word, but she’s a ripping beauty in that black, isn’t she?” came
from Cary Ray under his breath, as he waved an eager greeting at the
girl above him, and received an answering smile slightly touched with
pensiveness. “Looks as if she’d been pretty unhappy, too. He was about
all she had in the world, anyhow, wasn’t he?--except the invalid
mother. Poor girl!”
Nan smothered a sigh. Thus was Fanny wont to carry off the interest and
sympathy of the spectator, whatever she did, on the stage or off it--if
she was ever really off the stage. Miss Lockhart now spoke sternly to
her inner self: “Don’t be a prig, Nancy! Admit she’s perfectly stunning
to look at, and she has the right to mourn her uncle if she wants to.
She didn’t have to make a dowd of herself to do it, just so other women
wouldn’t be envious.”
“Yes, she is a beauty,” she answered, in her usual generous way. “And
I’m sure it was a great loss.”
And then she found herself almost instantly a supernumerary, as she
was quite accustomed to be when with her friend in the company of any
man on earth. After one ardent embrace, during which Fanny murmured
the most affectionate of greetings in her ear--“You old darling--what
it _means_ to get back to _you_!”--it was Cary to whom the newcomer
turned, and toward whom she remained turned--so to speak--throughout
the walk home. Nan had to concede to herself, as she kept pace with
the pair beside her, that Cary was doing his part most thoroughly, and
that Fanny could not justly be blamed for giving him her attention.
Before they had reached the house it began to look to Nan as if Fanny’s
mourning had gone to Cary’s head!
She left them in the library, knowing well what was expected of her,
and went upstairs wondering, as she had wondered a thousand times
before, just why she cared so much for Fanny Fitch. And then, as a
thousand times before, she found the explanation. To do Fanny entire
justice, she was not one of the girls who find no time or taste for
others of their own sex. Nobody could be more fascinating than she to
Nan herself, when quite alone with her. Never down at heel or ragged
at elbow in moments of privacy, always making herself charming from
sheer love of her own alluring image in the mirror, capable of the
most clever and entertaining talk when the mood took her, though there
might be no man’s eye or ear within reach--it was impossible not indeed
quite to adore her. Nan’s soberer yet highly intelligent self found a
curiously satisfying complement at times in Fanny’s lighter but far
more versatile personality. It was only when the more irresponsible and
reckless side of the other girl’s nature came uppermost that Nan found
herself critical and sometimes deeply disapproving and resentful.
It was a full hour before Fanny came upstairs. Nan had been waiting for
her in the guest’s room, where she had had the luggage taken. As Fanny
came in, the look of her struck Nan afresh as being past all precedent
attractive and appealing. Her colour was now heightened, evidently
by the interview with Cary, and her eyes were full of all manner of
strange lights. She had not yet removed her hat, and somehow the whole
effect of her was that of one poised but a moment at a resting place
on a journey full of both excitement and peril.
The two met in the middle of the large and airy room.
“Well, dear--and aren’t you going to take off your hat and settle
down?” Nan put up her hand to remove the demurely becoming hat in
question. “Why didn’t you take it off downstairs and rest your head?”
“I felt better armoured for defense with it. Never mind taking it
off--I’m going out again.”
“Did you need defense, then?”
“Doesn’t one, when a determined young man wants to marry one out of
hand? I’ve only succeeded in putting him off for an hour or two, at
that. He says he may go any day, and on seeing me just now he realized
he couldn’t go without leaving me behind securely tied. What do you
think of that, for a poor girl just from a funeral, to be confronted
with a wedding?”
“But, Fanny----”
“That’s what I said--‘But, Cary----’ In fact, I never got further than
that, though I tried it ten times over.”
“But did you--give him any encouragement?”
“Did I? Well, now, knowing me--as you think you do--what’s your idea of
it?”
Nan studied her, without answering. Her gaze dropped from Fanny’s face
to her black-clad shoulder, then suddenly she put her arm about that
shoulder.
“I’m forgetting,” she said, gravely, “that you have lost a friend.
I’m sorry. Somehow I didn’t expect to see you in black, and can’t yet
realize that it means bereavement.”
“What a subtle way of telling me that my particular kind of black
doesn’t wholly suggest bereavement! Well, my dear--it seemed to me only
decent to show some respect to an old man who has been very decent
to me, and left me enough to buy silk stockings and pumps in which to
mourn him, to say nothing of other accessories. I don’t think he would
have approved of henrietta cloth and crêpe--and besides--what I’m
wearing suits me better, don’t you think? How do you imagine it will
impress the Reverend Robert? I’ve already noted its effect on one young
man. Can I hope to make another lose his head within the hour?”
Fanny walked over to the mirror and gave a touch or two to her hair
beneath the black hat-brim. Nan’s eyes still followed her.
“I ought to be used to your breath-taking statements,” Nan observed,
uneasily, “but I probably never shall be any more than I can become
used to the covering up of what I know is your real self with all this
pretense of lightness. You are sorry you have lost your uncle, but one
would never guess it. And you care--or don’t care--for Cary Ray, and I
haven’t an idea which. As for--the crazy things you’ve said all along
about----”
“Don’t hesitate to mention his name--I adore hearing it. And I’m going
to pronounce it myself to its owner this very hour--if he’s at home.
That’s why I’m keeping on my hat. And why--” Fanny dived into a small
and chastely elegant black leather travelling bag, and after a moment’s
searching brought forth two filmily fine handkerchiefs which she tucked
away in her dress--“why I am providing myself with the wherewithal to
weep upon. I have no doubt that what the Reverend Robert says to me
will bring forth tears, and I want to be prepared. But whether tears of
joy or sorrow----”
“Fanny! You’re not--going to him?”
“My beloved Annette, the number of times in the course of my
acquaintance with you that you have pronounced the word ‘_Fanny!_’ in
precisely that tone of expostulatory shock couldn’t be numbered!--I
am going to him--since I don’t know any way of making him come to
me. Cary happened to say that Mr. Black also was liable to be called
at any hour, and I dare not delay. I want to have an important--very
important--interview with him while my courage is high. I told you,
some time ago, that I should find a way, and I’ve found it. Wish me
good luck!”
That was all there was to it. Although Nan Lockhart was more than
anxious as to what might underlie Fanny’s mystifying language, she
could not doubt, when Fanny presently set forth from the house, that
she was going, as she had declared, to the manse. It was by now four
in the afternoon. Nan had offered to accompany her friend, saying that
she thought, if Fanny must go, that she would best not go alone. She
had been told that she was a meddling old granny, and that her place
was by the fireside. So--with a kiss--Miss Fitch had walked away, and
as Nan anxiously watched her go down the street she had been forced to
admit to herself, as she had admitted many times before, that there was
an unexplainable and irresistible witchery about Fanny, and that there
could be little doubt that somebody was in danger. She wondered which
of them it was--if any could be in greater danger than Fanny herself.
The master of the manse was at home when his bell rang presently, so it
fell out, though ten minutes before he had not been there, nor would
have been ten minutes later. He had rushed in for a certain book he
wanted, and was just within his own front door when he heard the bell.
He opened it, his thoughts upon the book in his hand--it was one on
“Minor Tactics,” by the way, and he wanted it for one of his boys. So
he confronted his caller with no means of escape--if he had wanted
any. Why mortal man should wish to escape from the vision of sad-eyed
beauty which awaited him upon his doorstep none who had seen her there
could say--certainly not Cary Ray, who had seen her there, and who was
now stalking angrily up and down a side street, intent on keeping her
somehow within his reach. He knew that Fanny had meant to come--had she
not told him so? Why she had not let him come with her----
“I’m sorry to delay you, Mr. Black, but--I need your help very much.
Will you let me come in for a very few minutes?”
“Certainly, Miss Fitch, come in.”
What else was there to do? All sorts and classes of people were
accustomed to enter the manse doors at all hours, so why not this girl
in black with the shadows under her eyes and the note of appeal in her
voice, who said she needed his help? What was he there for, except to
help? And yet, somehow, Robert Black had never been quite so unwilling
to admit a visitor. Something within him seemed to warn him that if
ever he had been on his guard, he must be on it now.
If Nan could have seen Fanny, as she took her seat in the chair Black
placed for her, she would have wondered if she knew her friend, after
all. This the girl with the glitter in her eyes, the reckless note in
her voice, the captivating ways which Cary Ray knew so well? This was
a girl of another sort altogether; one in deep trouble, who presented
to the man before her a face so sadly sweet, lifted to him eyes in
which lay such depths of anxiety, that he might well summon his best
resources to her aid. If ever sincerity looked out between lifted
lashes, it showed between those heavily shadowing ones which were among
Fanny’s most conscious and cherished possessions.
So then Fanny told Black her story. It was a touching story, bravely
told. Whenever the lines of it began to verge too decidedly upon the
pathetic she brought herself up, as she caught her red lips between her
teeth, said softly, “Oh, never mind that part--it’s no different from
thousands of others,” and went quietly and clearly on. She told him of
the invalid mother, so dear and so helpless--of the uncle who had died,
the one man left in the bereaved family, for whom she obviously wore
her mourning--“though he would have told me not, wonderful old man, who
wanted nobody to grieve for him.” She spoke of the future, so obscure,
and what it was best to do; and now, suddenly, when she least expected
it--she hesitated, then came frankly out with it--here was this suitor
besieging her, whom she must answer. And with it all--she was suffering
a great longing for something which she had not--a sense that there was
a God who cared, which she found it, oh! so difficult to believe. This
last was the greatest, much the greatest, need of all. She had come to
him because she knew no one else who could point the way....
Here she rested her case, and sat silently looking down at her hands
clasped tightly in her lap, her face paling with the stress of her
repressed emotion. Yes, it did pale, as well it might. When one dares
to play with sacred things, small wonder if the blood seeps away
from the capillaries, and the pulse beats fast and small. And Fanny
knew--who could know better?--that she was playing, playing a desperate
game, with the last cards she held.
It was very perfect acting, and yet, somehow, it did not make the man
who watched it lower his guard. He had had no great experience with
just this sort of thing, and yet--he had seen Fanny act before, and had
detected in her acting that it never once forgot itself in the grip of
a genuine emotion. When she ceased speaking, and it became necessary to
answer her, he felt his way with every word he spoke.
“Have you told all this to Miss Lockhart?” was the unexpected question
he put to her.
Imperceptibly Fanny winced, but she replied quietly: “Nan knows much,
but not all. She doesn’t quite understand me, I think. I can never make
her realize that flippant and frivolous as I can be on the surface,
underneath something runs deep.”
“Yet she must want to assure herself of that, she’s so finely genuine
herself. Ever since I have known her I have thought her one of the
best-balanced young women I ever knew. She seems very devoted to you.
And as for her faith in things unseen, I am sure it is very real.
I don’t see how you could do better than to put yourself under her
tuition.”
“I have tried, Mr. Black--I assure you I have. Nan and I are dear
friends, and I respect and admire her devotedly. But I can’t talk about
these things even to her. Somehow I can’t to any woman. I need--I think
I need a man’s point of view. And not only a man’s but--a priest’s.”
Her eyes lifted themselves slowly to his, and there was a spiritual
sort of beseeching in them which very nearly veiled and covered the
terribly human wish which was behind. For a moment Black wondered with
a heart-sinking throb of anxiety if he were right in distrusting her
motive in coming to him as he had thus far distrusted it. How should
he dare not to respond to her need, if it were real? How send her from
him unanswered and unsatisfied, if he could really do anything for
her? Why, merely because she was fascinating to look upon, must she
be a deceiver; while if she sat before him with a plain face and red,
white-lashed eyes, he would be far surer that she was in real distress.
It wasn’t fair to her, was it, to doubt her without the proof?
While he hesitated over what to say to this appeal, all at once he was
confronted with a new situation; one ever calculated to weaken and
undermine the judgment of man. Fanny sat close beside his study desk,
from the opposite side of which he faced her. When his silence had
lasted for a full minute she quietly turned and laid her arm upon the
desk--a roundly white arm, the fair flesh showing through the sheer
black fabric of her close sleeve--and buried her face in her arm. With
her free hand she found her handkerchief--one of the two with which she
had provided herself--and then Black saw that she was softly sobbing,
and seemingly trying with much difficulty to control herself.
Well--was this acting, too? Can a woman weep at will? And if she
were as unhappy as she seemed, what was he to do about it? It was an
extremely uncomfortable and disquieting situation, and Black wondered
for a moment if he could possibly see it through without blundering. He
was wishing ardently that he had a mother or a sister at hand. There
was only Mrs. Hodder whom he could call in, and she was assuredly not
the person to act as duenna to this young woman. To bring her in would
be to send Fanny out. And was it possible that this was really his
opportunity, and that he must forget everything except to use it for
all that there was in it?
“I’m sorry you are unhappy,” he said. “Of course it’s not possible
for me to advise you as to Cary Ray--only yourself can answer that
question. I’ve grown to like and respect him very thoroughly, and if
you could be to him what he needs in the way of a sheet anchor, it
would help him more than anything in the world to steer a straight
course.”
Fanny lifted a tear-wet face. “Would you advise me to marry
him--without--loving him?”
“Certainly not.”
“If I cared with all my heart and soul for--someone else----” She rose
suddenly to her feet, and stood before him, a tragic, lovely figure of
despair. “Oh,” she breathed, “you simply have to know--I can’t keep it
from you. You are going so soon--there’s no time to wait. I--I don’t
know what you will think, but--over there you are going to go into
all sorts of danger. I may never see you again. Is it a time to be
afraid--for even a woman to be afraid--to speak? You may despise me
for--showing my heart--but--oh, I can’t help it! Don’t--turn me away.
If you do, I think I shall--die!”
Robert Black stood as if turned to stone. He had risen as she had
risen; he now stood staring at her across the massive old black walnut
desk as if he could not believe the evidence of his own ears. If Fanny
were to make this incredible declaration at all, she had done it in
the only possible way--across that study desk. If she had attempted to
come near him, to put her hand in his, to try upon him the least of all
feminine arts in approaching man, he would have retreated, bodily and
spiritually, and have been at once too far away for her to reach. But
the very manner of her appeal to him carried with it a certain dignity.
He could not conceivably repulse her in the same way that he could have
done if she had played the temptress, or even the woman who counts upon
her personal charm at close range to sway a man’s heart and influence
his decision. Fanny had studied this man, and gauged him well. If she
had any possible chance with him it was only by making her supplication
to him from a distance, and by looking, when she had made it--as she
did look--like a young princess who stoops to lift him of her choice to
her estate. It was undoubtedly the greatest moment of Fanny’s dramatic
experience; she was a real actress now, for beyond all question she was
living the part she acted, and the emotion which stirred her was the
strongest of her life.
It was not long that Black stared at her white face, his own face
paling. It was only for a moment that she let him see all she could
show him; then she turned and walked away, across the room, and stood
with her back to him, her hands clasped before her, her head drooping.
The figure she thus presented to him was still that of the princess,
but it was also that of the woman who, having for the instant lifted
the veil, drops it again, and awaits in proud patience the man’s
pronouncement.
Black came slowly toward her--it did not seem possible courteously to
address her across the many feet of space she had now put between them.
He stopped when he was near enough--and not too near--he seemed to know
rather definitely when this point had been reached. But before he could
speak Fanny herself broke the stillness. She put out one hand without
turning.
“Please don’t come nearer,” she breathed. “I can’t--bear it.”
And then she did turn, lifting to him a face so beseeching, lifting to
him for one instant’s gesture arms so imploring, that if there had been
in him one impulse towards her he would have been more than man if he
had resisted her. But--how could there be in him one impulse towards
her when, with every moment in her presence, there had been living more
vividly in his remembrance that other moment, now days ago, when he had
given Jane Ray--“all he had.” Though never again--never again--should
even so brief a glory of experience come to him, rather would he have
that one wonderful memory than all that there might be for him in these
two outstretched arms.
Yet--how could he but be pitiful--and merciful--to Fanny Fitch? To have
offered herself to him, and to have to stand there waiting to be taken
or refused--there seemed to him no words too kind in which to make her
understand. And yet--how to find words at all!
“You must know,” he said at last, and with difficulty, “that I am--that
I have--no way to tell you--how badly I feel to have you tell me this,
and to be--unable to----”
“You’re not unable--you’re just afraid. You’ve kept your heart
sealed up so long--you’ve been so frightfully discreet--such a model
minister--you don’t know at all what you’re putting away from you. It
will never come back--you’ll never have the chance again I’m giving
you--to live--to _live_--oh, to live with all there is of you, not just
with the nice, proper, priestly side of you!” The passionate voice
lifted and dropped again in choking cadences. “You think I couldn’t
adapt myself, couldn’t fill the part. I could--I could!--I would do
anything you asked of me--become a mystic, like yourself--or----”
“Oh, _stop_!”
Fanny stopped--there was no disobeying that low, commanding voice. She
knew herself that she had now gone too far. She stood with both hands
pressed over her throat, which threatened to contract and shut off her
breathing.
“I can’t let you--I won’t let you go on. You’re overwrought--you’re not
yourself, Miss Fitch. Your long journey--your uncle’s death--Cary’s
suit--everything has combined to overtax your nerves. You’re going
to put away this hour as if it had never been, and so am I. You’re
going to find happiness in being a good friend to Cary, whether or not
anything comes of it. He’s worth all you can give him--and you’re going
to give him your very best. Now--won’t you----”
“Go away?” She looked up at him with a twisted, angry smile. “Before
you have--prayed with me, for the good of my wicked soul? You might at
least do that, since it’s all you can do for me!”
Suddenly he felt as if he were in the midst of cheap melodrama, forced
to take a part against his will. He had never believed in this girl, he
believed in her less than ever now. For a moment she had convinced him
that in her own fashion she loved him--if she knew what the word meant.
But now he was driven to believe that only her passion for excitement
had brought this scene upon him, and that this last cynical speech was
just the expression of her fondness for the drama. He turned cold in an
instant; his very spirit retreated from her.
“I should feel,” he said, very quietly, “as if I were playing with
prayer, if I made use of it just now. I think the best thing for you is
to try to rest and sleep, and come back to a natural and sane way of
looking at things. If doors don’t open at a touch, if they are locked
and one has no key, it’s not wise to try to force them. There are
plenty of doors that will open at your touch----”
“But not yours! And now that you have locked and doubled barred it I
want to tell you that it’s too late. I’ve seen inside, and know what a
chilly, stony place it is. There’s no fire there--it’s all austerity.
No woman could keep warm there, certainly not a woman like me. I’ve
long wanted to know what was behind that granite face of yours, and
now I’ve found out. I’ve kept my splendid, big-hearted Cary waiting
till I could satisfy myself about you, and know that he was worth two,
three--ten of you, Robert Black! I’m going back to him--and happy to
go. Do you wish me joy? Or does even doing that go against your flinty
conscience?”
He came toward her, pitying her again now, it was so obvious that she
was trying to save her humiliated face.
“Miss Fitch,” he said, gently, “I do wish you joy--if you can find it
in anything genuine. But don’t play with Cary Ray--he doesn’t deserve
it.”
“Will you marry us to-night at eight o’clock?”
He looked at her steadily. “You don’t mean that!”
“I certainly do. That was what I came for--as he knows. And to settle
a little wager I had with him. I’ve settled it. And now I’m doing my
real errand. Will you marry us, Mr. Robert Black?--since you have
refused--everything else?”
He walked away from her now, over to the window, and stood looking out
for a space. Fanny watched him, her head up, her lips smiling a little,
ready to face him when he turned again. He came back at last, and he
spoke quietly and decidedly.
“If you will send Cary to me,” he said, “and he asks me to do this, I
will do it. Not otherwise.”
“What do you want to do? Talk with him, and try to persuade him that
I’m not good enough for him?”
“I want to talk with him. I want to ask him to wait to marry you till
he comes back.”
“And why, if you please?”
“Because he’s going to find out, over there, that life is something
besides a game. And when he comes back, if he still wants you, it will
be because you have found it out, too. Oh, I wish--I wish with all my
heart--you would stop playing and be real. Why not?”
“I think,” said Fanny Fitch, “it’s because I’m made that way. You might
as well give me up. If I laugh, it’s as likely as not to be because I
want to cry. And if I cry, it’s more than likely to be true that I’m
laughing inside. I love to act, on the stage or off of it. How can I
help that? It’s the true dramatic instinct. How can I be any more real
than I am? Being what you call unreal is reality to me. If I were to
try to be what to you is real, I should be more unreal than I am now.
There, Mr. Minister what will you do with that?”
Black shook his head. “You are merely juggling with words now,” he
said. “I think you know what I mean as well as I do. And I think
something will happen which will make you unwilling to play with
things--and people--as you do now. Meanwhile----”
The doorbell rang sharply. It was what Black had been expecting
all along. There was nothing to do but answer it. Mrs. Hodder was
accustomed to do this only by request, and he had not asked her for
it to-day, for she was more than usually busy in her kitchen. Black
went to the door, leaving Fanny behind, and hoping against hope that
it might not be some caller who would be certain to misunderstand the
whole situation. It proved to be the one man whom he could have wished
to see. Cary Ray had walked the street to a purpose, though he had not
known, for he had met a messenger. With his message in his hand he had
rushed to the manse door.
“Is Fanny here?”
“Yes. Come into my study, please.”
Breathless with his fast walk which had been all but a run, Cary
confronted Fanny across the room. He crossed it, seized her hands, and
stood looking down into her face with excited eyes. The drops stood out
upon his forehead.
“You put me off too long,” he said. “I’m off--no time for anything but
to throw my things together and catch the next train. I knew when the
orders came they’d come this way. There isn’t even time for--what we’d
have to get first if we did what I wanted. Perhaps--since you didn’t
know your own mind--it’s just as well. Maybe--if I come back--you’ll
know it better. And if I don’t--never mind. All I want is to get into
the game somehow.”
Even at the moment Fanny looked past Cary at Robert Black.
“You see,” she said, “he calls it a game, too.”
“He won’t,” Black answered, “when he comes back--as please God he will.”
“I can’t stop a minute. Will you both go with me, over to my sister’s?”
“Of course.”
Black caught up his hat. Fanny snatched a glance at herself as she went
by a sombre black-walnut-framed mirror in the hall. Cary mopped his
brow and ran a finger round inside his collar. It was quite plain that
his eagerness now was concentrated on the great news of his imminent
departure. Suddenly nothing much mattered to him except that at last
he was off, with his longed-for chance before him. That was the big
thing to him now, not getting married in haste and leaving a bride
behind him. It was as plain as could be in every word he said, and in
the joyful sparkle in his eyes. Quicksilver in a tube was Cary Ray--and
the mercury had jumped all but to the top!
The following hour was as wild a one as only those can conceive who
have had an experience like it. At the end of it Cary and Jane, Fanny,
Nan Lockhart, and Robert Black stood on the station platform with six
minutes to spare. At almost the same instant Doctor Burns’s car drew
up, and he and Mrs. Burns joined the group.
“You are all regular bricks, you know,” declared Cary, “to stand by me
like this. Everybody’s here I could have wanted, except Tom, and since
he beat me to a uniform, and there’s no way of getting his training
camp on the wire in a hurry, I’ll have to go off unsped by him. But I
know what he’d say: ‘This is the life!’ He’s said it to me at least
once a week on a postcard, ever since he left us.”
“If you are half as happy to be in it as he is----” began Nan.
“I’m twice as happy--no question of it. And I want to tell all you
people----” Cary paused, looked quickly from one to another, and his
bright glance fell. “No, I don’t believe I can,” he confessed, “at
least not in a group like this. I think what little I can say I owe my
sister. If you’ll forgive me I’ll take her down the platform a bit and
give her my parting instructions.”
He grasped her arm and walked away with her, the friendly eyes
following the pair. Friendly? Black couldn’t help wondering just what
Fanny was thinking as she looked after them. Certainly she was paler
than he had ever seen her--or was that her unaccustomed sombre attire?
“Sis,” Cary said in Jane’s ear, “it’s tough to go like this, after all,
with all the things I want to say left up in the air. I hope you’ll
somehow make those trumps back there know what their friendship has
meant to me.--I say--” he broke off to stare at her--“by George! I
didn’t know you were so easy to look at, little girl. You--you--why
you’re the sweetest thing that ever happened--and not just soft sweet,
either--stingingly sweet, I should put it.”
“Dear, you’re just seeing me through the eyes of parting. Cary, when I
get across we can surely meet sometimes, can’t we? Correspondents have
more freedom of movement than other men, I’m sure.”
“We’ll try it, anyhow. Janie--I want you to know how I just plain
worship you for sticking by and pulling me out of the ditch the way you
have--you and Bob Black, and the Doctor. Words can’t say it--but maybe
actions can. I’m taking you three with me--and leaving behind a girl
who doesn’t know whether she wants me or not. Best thing to do--eh?”
Well, he was excited, strung to a high tension, eager to be off--it
could be read in his every word and look. He had barely said these
things to Jane before he had her back with the others, and was getting
off gay, daring speeches to one and another, sometimes aloud, sometimes
under his breath for one ear only. The words he left with Fanny Fitch
stayed with her for many a day.
“Get into the game, somehow--will you? You can do that much for me,
anyhow. If you will I’ll call it square--of you.”
When he had gone, his handsome, eager face laughing back at them from
the rear platform of his train, Robert Black found himself following
Cary with an involuntary “God bless and keep you safe, Cary Ray!” the
more fervent that it was unuttered. Suddenly his heart was very anxious
for this audacious and lovable fellow. How would he come through? Yet
it was not of Cary’s life that he was thinking.
Determinedly he took his place beside Jane. The party had dismissed
their taxicab, now that the rush for the train was over, and were
walking back. It was no time to allow circumstances or other people to
come between them.
“Oh, how I wish,” breathed Jane, “that I could go this very night. I
want so much to get away before--you do.”
“And I’m wanting to go before you! If you go first I shall see you off.
If I go first, will you do the same for me?”
“Your whole church will be there.”
“Not if I can help it. But even if they are, it will make no
difference. I shall want to look last at--you.”
“Did you think,” admitted Jane, smiling, “that I could possibly stay
away?”